Al-Humoud 'ready' for grilling
KUWAIT CITY, Nov 19: The government has reportedly included a draft law on income tax among its list of priorities which it submitted to a parliamentary team arranging priority issues, parliamentary sources told Al-Anba daily.
Sources mentioned that the government has not yet prepared the draft law, but it wanted to have a session in the current legislative term allocated to discuss the issue.
MP Naji Abdulhadi reacted to this, saying "the government wants to create political tension by taking up this issue. It is deliberately trying to provoke the nation." He accused Finance Minister Mustafa Al-Shamali of inciting citizens and said the proposal was not in the development plan and was not approved in economic plans of 1992, 1996 and 1999. The lawmaker rued that the government is ignoring basic priorities like education, health and housing problems.
Furthermore, MP Ali Al-Omair said "we are against this tax law even if it is applied in many countries all over the world. The government is merely trying to stoke political tension and moreover, we lawmakers aren't forced to accept every item the government proposes."
Meanwhile, Minister of Education and Higher Education Dr Mudhi Al-Humoud is ready to mount the grilling podium and face all accusations "for she fears nothing," reliable sources told Al-Anba daily.
Sources said the minister has started collecting data and other information needed to counter the angles of interpellation which Development and Reform Bloc is reportedly planning to submit against her.
Other sources said the interpellation is not due to the people the minister recruited, rather her inability to take timely decisions while recruiting for leadership positions at Kuwait University, Education Ministry and the Public Authority for Applied Education and Training (PAAET). "This kind of delay is unprecedented in the history of these academic and educational institutions," added sources.
One of the angles in the grilling is about the 4,000 mistakes committed while entering the data of final results of secondary stage examinations of 2009-2010. The minister has reportedly asked for adoption of new methods to avoid a recurrence of such mistakes. She has taken measures to prevent such mistakes, but didn't do anything about the mistakes which were already committed and herein lies the problem, they noted.
© Arab Times 2010
